John Buttrick

Buttrick is a native New Yorker. He majored in American Studies at Northwestern University and later earned a JD from Villanova University School of Law.⁠[1][1]

Buttrick began his career at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell as a corporate lawyer in New York and Paris, and was a partner in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions group from 1994 to 2000.⁠[1]

Between 2000 and 2010, Buttrick was involved in a number of private equity and venture projects.⁠[1]

Since 2004, Buttrick has been a member of the board of the New York State environmental group Environmental Advocates of New York, and as of October 2026 he serves as its board chair.⁠[1][2]

In 2010, Buttrick joined the New York venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV) as a partner.⁠[1]

USV’s Opportunity Fund led a $25 million Series D round in the online lending marketplace Lending Club, the fund’s first investment in a company in which USV was not an early investor. Buttrick argued that banks charging 18% or more on credit card balances while paying depositors only 1% was a market inefficiency ripe for disruption by technology.⁠[3][3][3][3]

USV led the Series B round of Kansas City-based Pollenware (C2FO). The company built a working capital marketplace in which buyers and suppliers negotiate discounts for early payment in a live bid/ask environment, and it expected its marketplace to transact more than $3 billion of early payments in 2012.⁠[4][4][4][4]

In February 2013, USV led a financing round in Hailo, an e-hail app based in London and New York; in June, USV announced an investment in Auxmoney, an online consumer credit marketplace in Düsseldorf, Germany; in July, USV announced an investment in SigFig, an investment management service originally founded as Wikinvest.⁠[5][6][6][7][7]

In October 2014, USV led the Series A round of eShares, an equity management software company. Buttrick wrote that USV held equity in more than 50 companies and that most portfolio companies still managed their cap tables in spreadsheets and communicated them by email, a slow and error-prone process. eShares later rolled out 409A valuation services and was renamed Carta in the fourth quarter of 2017.⁠[8][9][9][9][8][8]

Buttrick wrote that the USV 2016 fund would close its first investment that week; the fund had $175 million in capital commitments, the same size as the 2014 fund, and was USV’s fifth early-stage fund, managed by five investing partners: Brad BurnhamBrad BurnhamBrad Burnham is an American venture capitalist who co-founded the New York venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV) with Fred Wilson in 2003, after working at AT&T and its venture capital arm and co-founding the ad technology company TACODA; he has long publicly advocated net neutrality and opposed the abuse of software patents. Since October 2026 he has moved to continuing support of USV and is no longer listed on its core investment team.Open the full entry, Fred WilsonFred WilsonFred Wilson is an American venture capitalist, co-founder and partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), and earlier co-founder, with Jerry Colonna, of the internet investment firm Flatiron Partners. He has written the blog AVC since 2003, chaired Etsy’s board for many years, and is a director of Coinbase.Open the full entry, Albert WengerAlbert WengerAlbert Wenger is a New York venture capitalist and writer, a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), former president of the bookmarking site del.icio.us, and author of The World After Capital, which discusses the scarcity of attention and basic income; he also co-founded community projects in Hudson, New York, including a basic income pilot. Since October 2026 he has moved to continuing support of USV and is no longer listed on its core investment team.Open the full entry, Andy WeissmanAndy WeissmanAndy Weissman is a New York venture capitalist who has been a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV) since 2011 and earlier co-founded the technology company and investment platform betaworks; when USV announced its new funds in October 2026, he moved to continuing support of the firm and its portfolio companies and is no longer listed on the core investment team.Open the full entry and himself. He also wrote that the previous summer he, Wilson and Burnham had each concluded it was time to cut back a bit, and that the fund’s key man provision was changed to focus on Wenger and Weissman; the three of them remained active in all of the fund’s investment decisions.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10]

USV led PayJoy’s Series A round. The company offers smartphone financing to consumers with little or no credit history, financing 70% to 80% of a phone’s price over 3 to 12 months; if customers fail to pay after multiple notices, the phone is locked until payment is received.⁠[11][11][11]

Buttrick, together with Brad Burnham, Fred Wilson, Andy Weissman and Albert Wenger, published a post on the USV website stating that this was the first presidential election during USV’s existence in which the firm endorsed a candidate, Hillary Clinton, and arguing that a protest vote is a wasted vote.⁠[12][12][12]

Buttrick recalled that after USV invested, Lending Club grew from $20 million a month in originations to $500 million a month when it went public in December 2014; he said Lending Club probably went public too early, and in May 2016 the company faced compliance issues and its founder Renaud Laplanche left. In April 2017, Laplanche launched a new consumer credit marketplace, Upgrade, and USV was among its Series A investors.⁠[13][13][13][13][13]

Carta closed a Series E round led by a16z, with the funds to be used to enable liquidity across its network. USV sold some shares in this round to manage a potential liquidity issue in its 2014 fund.⁠[8][8][8]

In January 2020, USV announced an investment in Juro, software that handles contract preparation, negotiation, signature and management in the browser; Buttrick recalled that Contracts was one of his favorite classes in law school. The same month, the USV portfolio company CoverWallet, a commercial insurance platform, was acquired by the insurer Aon; USV had invested in a follow-on to its seed round in March 2016, and by the time of the acquisition the company had more than 300 employees.⁠[14][14][14][15][15][15]

Buttrick wrote that USV had long focused mainly on companies in North America and Europe, and that in 2020 it led the Series A of alt.bank, based in São Paulo, Brazil, which serves the roughly 100 million underbanked or unbanked adults in Brazil; since the onset of COVID, USV had made more than a dozen investments without meeting teams face to face. In May 2021, USV announced a Series B investment in ADDI, a buy-now-pay-later company based in Bogotá, Colombia.⁠[16][16][16][16][17]

USV announced an investment in Parallel Markets, which provides financial institutions with portable, digital investor identity verification, including verified accreditation for 506(c) offerings and KYC/AML checks.⁠[18][18]

USV announced $900 million in new funds and a team reorganization: the core investment team consists of new members together with Fred Wilson, Rebecca KadenRebecca KadenRebecca Kaden is an American venture capitalist and a managing partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV). She joined the firm in 2017 and since 2026 has been one of its four active general partners.Open the full entry, Nick GrossmanNick GrossmanNick Grossman is an American venture capitalist and a general partner at the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), focusing on technologies such as crypto networks and AI agents that could reshape large markets. He began his career in urban planning and open-source civic technology and joined USV in 2012.Open the full entry and Nikhil Raman, while Buttrick, Andy Weissman, Albert Wenger and Brad Burnham continue supporting USV and its portfolio companies.⁠[19][19]

X: Public account: https://x.com/johnbuttrick (opens in a new window)⁠[20]

Union Square Ventures: Official website: https://www.usv.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[21]

Environmental Advocates of New York: Official website: https://www.eany.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]